Today we tackled the huge job of cleaning up the garage. I think we have enough stuff in there to open a second Value Village.

One of the jobs I finally got around to was sorting through some of the stuff brought over here at least a year ago after my dad’s things were sorted out. One of the things that came to me were the family treasures that dad kept. Maybe my tendency to collect came from him. He had saved all of the sympathy cards from when my mom passed away and a lot of other things that reminded me so much of both of them.

It’s been 33 years since mom died so suddenly on May 29th. In one notebook Dad kept, he had written down all the details of how he had tried to contact me off in the interior of Zaire. Numbers for contacts at the consulate and the missions office. And my response that I could not come home – my passport was down in the visa office and not accessible to me for travel. There was so much in that box that I had never seen. I sort of wish that it had all been dragged out back 31 years ago when I had come home for the first time since mom’s death. Maybe the mourning would have been more complete. Maybe it never will be entirely. I will never lose the connection I had with her as her daughter. She is for me one of the saints that surrounds me with the whole horde of the faithful who have gone on before.

So, today I mourned a little. Not in some psychologically sick sort of way that refuses to accept the facts of life and death. But there was so much I missed by not being here at her death that creeps up on me in unexpected ways. And so, I weep and I mourn.

Then life goes on.

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0 responses to “Then Life Goes On”

We don’t know each other… I am a Christian,a nurse in Saskatoon. Actually, I was once a Corrections nurse and met your husband at methadone conferences.
I was reading your blog today… as I do most days. We are at similar stages of life, the “sandwich” generation still mentoring adult kids and caring for failing seniors in our lives. I was touched by your insites into grief… it has been 20 years since my father died very sudenly. I am still grieving… nothing will ever fill that spot.I will think the process is complete then , out of the blue, something will trigger a memory and the emotions of that loss return. I am trying to prepare for the death of my mother… can you “pre-grieve”? I did prepare for the death of my sister from breast cancer as she was sick for several years. It was still hard but not the life altering los that losing a parent was. Most of my energies went to tring to reach out to her teenage kids.
I learned so much about the process of grief especially that God really does provide comfort and strength just when it is most needed.
Thankyou for sharing your experience. Blessings, Linda Hilderman

Linda – Perhaps it is the closeness of the relationship with the one who goes, or perhaps the suddenness and surprise that magnifies the loss. Maybe pre-grieving is a good part of the preparation and makes the loss less dramatic. I don’t grieve for my dad in the same way – his was a slow passing and brought him freedom and I had time to spend with him in preparation.

Whatever if is, grieving is hard. And I think we can’t really tell how we are going to do until we are in the process.

Linea, For me, what made Mom’s death harder than Dad’s was that we were so much younger and had not had the time to build up the memories that living our lives brings. I did not have the chance to share the important milestones in my adult life with her – weddings, children etc. I got to have that with Dad and was grateful for it and all his wisdom, but Mom’s just hold a special place in our hearts. I still think of her often, especially every May 29 when I have the memory of waving goodbye to her as I left on the bus from Prince Albert to Saskatoon the night she died. When people ask me what Mom was like, I have a hard time answering because it just didn’t seem like I knew her for long enough. Joye

Joye,
There have been a million times I wish I could have asked her advice. I don’t suppose any of us knew her long enough. The things we knew were the kinds of things kids know about their parents. We missed out on an adult relationship and I think that would have given us a different idea of what she was like.